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Diners at McDonald's don't need a lawsuit to know that most fast food isn't good for them. So, please pass the ketchup, okay?
By DAVE SCHEIBER, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times, published November 14, 2002
ST. PETERSBURG -- It's just past noon in the lair of the Hamburglar, and Alan Giesy is enjoying his weekly guilty pleasure: a quiet table at McDonald's, newspaper in one hand and best meal deal of the day in the other.
Still, Giesy, a 46-year-old Allstate claims rep, admits to having a few mixed feelings with his order of large fries -- even if most days he brown-bags it at work or dashes home to slap a sandwich together.
"I have terrible guilt eating this at lunch, no doubt about that," he says, staring at his half-eaten Big Mac, at his regular spot on the north end of Fourth Street.
"I'm trying to jog in the evening, and believe me, after I eat this, I'll be back in my car going, 'Man, why did I do that?' I even had second thoughts pulling in -- maybe I'll just go home -- but that would be too rush-rush."
Giesy is not unlike millions of Americans who consume fast food as a regular part of their diets -- a habit that crusading attorney John Banzhaf finds most unappetizing.
The man who battled and beat Big Tobacco has launched a Big Mac Attack on the fast-food industry, claiming it has contributed to obesity and general health problems by not disclosing the dangers.
Though Banzhaf takes aim at fast food in general, he singled out McDonald's in a recent suit. So this reporter spent a lunch hour this week consulting McDonald's patrons.
The prevailing sentiment:
"I think people understand that fast food is not the best thing in the world for you. That's been well-publicized," Giesy says. "People may not understand exactly what it does to you, but I think they generally know it's not the healthiest."
Although cigarettes are habit-forming, Giesy views fast food simply as a convenience for people on the go or who want a break from cooking at home.
"People are pressed for time, so they have fast food," he says. "When you see a lawyer taking on a major corporation, I question what his incentive is. It might be for publicity or whatever. I can't see it. I've never known anybody who couldn't stop eating fast food. If they were heavy, it wasn't because of fast food. They just like to eat."
Giesy's 15-year-old daughter, Breanna, loves to eat at McDonald's, but this cross-country runner and soccer player at Keswick Christian can run off the calories.
"She prefers McDonald's over other places," Giesy says. "She orders the same thing every time -- the No. 2, double cheeseburger, large fries and a Coke. My wife, Vicky, doesn't eat here too much, but she does like Egg McMuffins for breakfast sometimes."
Whatever happens with Banzhaf's legal plans, Giesy sees no change of eating plans: "It won't affect us either way. If they do start pushing the healthy aspect, it may just make people feel guiltier."
So will he finish that half-eaten Big Mac now?
"Definitely," Giesy says. "I'm not that big of a radical."
Across the bay, Trish Lane sits in the kids section of a Tampa McDonald's, watching Alyssa, 6, and Kenneth, 2, climb on the playset after lunch.
Lane says she and her husband, Kentry Lane, who works in commercial real estate, allow one day a week to take the kids out for fast food.
"We try to accomplish that," she says. "We don't always succeed. But we visit Subway more than we would McDonald's."
To Lane, it's up to parents to make sure kids learn the hazards of too much fat and cholesterol in a diet, not a lawsuit against the industry.
"We as adults know what is healthy and what is not," she says. "And we have a responsibility to our children and to our families to teach our children what is good for our bodies. We're a fast-paced society -- with multiple children doing multiple activities -- so fast food is convenient. But you also have to weigh the risks of eating too much of it."
Back in St. Petersburg at the Northeast McDonald's, Kevin Maney, 38, and April Stutz, 36 -- engaged to be married -- are fast-food connoisseurs. They figure they eat it about five times a week because of their busy schedules.
"People know that a fast-food burger may have three times the calories as a salad, but you're making your own choice to go there," Stutz says.
Maney spends nine hours a day, often seven days a week, as a convenience store clerk. Fast food is often all he has time for, he says -- mixing it up between McDonald's, Taco Bell and Wendy's.
"The doctor told me to cut back a little last year due to high blood pressure and the salt intake," he says. "But I still eat at these place.
"I just avoid the doctor."